Forgiving someone who wronged you vs holding a grudge
If you act
Forgiving
10%
If you don't
Holding a grudge
33%
Percentage who later regret each choice. Bars and full ledger render below.
Lifestyle
Last reviewed 2026-04-26
Evidence quality 4.13/5
Eight-dimension review score against the
quality rubric
. Each dimension scored 1–5.
D1 Source verification
4/5
D2 Source authority & independence
4/5
D3 Regret-rate accuracy
3/5
D4 Source comparability
3/5
D5 Gilovich pattern
5/5
D6 Prose quality
5/5
D7 Caveat completeness
5/5
D8 Sample quality
4/5
Average4.13/5
Proxy data — no direct regret survey exists for this decision. Rates are derived from satisfaction scores and access-barrier data rather than questions that directly asked about regret. See caveats below.
Action regret
Forgiving
10%
no direct measure of regret after forgiving exists — 0.10 is an order-of-magnitude placeholder, not a source-stated rate
US adults, nationally representative
retrospective, no fixed timeframe
Inaction regret
Holding a grudge
33%
33% regret holding grudges
Adults globally, online panel (2,000 per country)
retrospective, no fixed timeframe
% who regret this choice
ForgivingHolding a grudge
10%33%
inaction dominates — Inaction dominates — most regret not acting.
Related decisions
Semantically similar decisions — same territory, different trade-offs.
33% of adults who hold grudges say they regret doing so, per Trustpilot’s
Helping Hands survey of 12,000 adults across six countries. There is no
comparable figure for the other side: no large survey has asked whether
people regret forgiving. The University of Michigan’s nationally
representative survey of 1,423 adults (Toussaint, Williams, Musick and
Everson, 2001) found that only 52% said they had forgiven others, and that
for adults aged 45 and older forgiving was linked with better self-reported
mental and physical health — it reports no regret figure and describes no
“small minority” who felt worse after forgiving. The action-side 10% shown
here is a placeholder that encodes direction, not a measured rate; it should
not be read as evidence that one in ten forgivers regret it. The Trustpilot
survey also found 70% “acknowledge” that grudge-holding harms their health,
but acknowledgment is not regret — the 33% who explicitly reported regretting
their grudges is the more appropriate comparison point.
The physiological case is unusually direct. Witvliet, Ludwig, and Vander
Laan (2001) measured 71 participants while they alternated between
grudge-rehearsal and forgiveness imagery. Grudge conditions produced
significantly elevated heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, and
brow tension — a sympathetic-nervous-system profile consistent with
chronic stress. Rasmussen et al. (2019) confirmed the pattern at scale:
across 103 samples totaling 26,043 participants, forgiveness was reliably
associated with better psychological and cardiovascular health, though
the correlation was modest (r roughly 0.14 to 0.18) and causality remains
unestablished.
The main caveat is measurement asymmetry. No major survey has directly
asked “Do you regret forgiving?”, and the cited Michigan survey reports no
such figure at all — so the action-side 10% is a placeholder, not a
measured or inferred rate. The 33% inaction-regret figure is a direct
regret question from a consumer panel, not a clinical cohort, and a third
of its grudge-holders could not even recall why they were still angry. The
directional finding — that grudge-holding generates more regret than
forgiving does — is consistent across multiple literatures. The precise
magnitude is not established.
Sources: action
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
1/2 sources independently verified verbatim against the cited source
[1]University of Michigan / Institute for Social Research — How link between forgiveness and health changes with age
Primary study
52% of a nationally representative sample of 1,423 Americans reported forgiving others; forgiveness of others was linked with better self-reported mental and physical health for adults aged 45 and older
Excerpt
“"Nearly 60 percent of a nationally representative sample of 1,423 Americans report that they have forgiven themselves for past mistakes and wrong-doing... but only 52 percent say they have forgiven others... In those aged 45 and older, forgiving others was linked with better self-reported mental and physical health."
”
Source data from
2001-12-11
Accessed
2026-04-26
Calculation
University of Michigan nationally representative survey of 1,423 US adults (Toussaint, Williams, Musick & Everson, 2001). The 52% forgave-others rate is verbatim from the ISR release. The study does NOT report any "regret forgiving" figure and describes only positive associations between forgiveness of others and health; it contains no "small minority experiencing negative outcomes" finding. No large-scale survey directly measures regret after forgiving, so the action-side 0.10 is an order-of-magnitude PLACEHOLDER, not a value inferred from any source-stated figure — see proxy_only and caveats. It exists only to preserve the schema's required numeric field and to encode the direction (inaction dominates), not as a calibrated rate.
[2]Psychological Science — Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: implications for emotion, physiology, and health
Verified
Peer-reviewed
Forgiveness imagery produced lower heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, and facial EMG compared to grudge rehearsal in 71 participants
Excerpt
“"Unforgiving thoughts prompted more aversive emotion, and significantly higher corrugator EMG, skin conductance, heart rate, and blood pressure changes from baseline. Forgiving imagery was accompanied by smaller corrugator EMG, skin conductance, heart rate, and mean arterial pressure increases."
”
Source data from
2001-03-01
Accessed
2026-04-26
Verification
Excerpt independently re-fetched and confirmed word-for-word against the cited source during our grounding audit.
Calculation
Witvliet, Ludwig & Vander Laan (2001), N=71. Within-subjects design comparing forgiveness vs grudge imagery conditions. Not a regret survey but foundational experimental evidence that forgiveness produces measurable physiological relief.
Sources: inaction
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
1/2 sources independently verified verbatim against the cited source
[1]Trustpilot / Helping Hands survey — Average adult holds seven grudges, Trustpilot research finds
Primary study
33% of adults surveyed regretted holding grudges; separately, 33% admitted their mental health suffered from ongoing feuds; 70% acknowledged grudge-holding is harmful to health
Excerpt
“"Around a third admitted their mental health has suffered as a direct result of ongoing feuds — which could partly explain why over a third regret holding grudges. Although 70% acknowledged that it was harmful to their health to hold onto a grudge, about the same percentage admitted to harboring a grudge."
”
Source data from
2023-06-15
Accessed
2026-04-26
Calculation
Trustpilot Helping Hands survey of 12,000 adults globally (2,000 per country: UK, US, Australia, Netherlands, France, Italy). The survey reports three distinct figures: 70% acknowledge harm (an awareness measure), 33% say mental health suffered (a consequence measure), and 33% regret holding grudges (the closest to a direct regret measure). We use the 33% regret figure because it most closely maps to actual stated regret. This is a consumer panel, not a clinical or academic sample.
[2]Psychology & Health — Meta-analytic connections between forgiveness and health: the moderating effects of forgiveness-related distinctions
Verified
Peer-reviewed
Across 103 samples (N = 26,043), forgiveness was reliably associated with better psychological and physical health; unforgiveness correlated with worse outcomes
Excerpt
“"The findings provided considerable support to current theorizing about the health benefits of forgiveness. Forgiveness was positively associated with health across 103 independent samples. The association was stronger for psychological health than for physical health, though associations with cardiovascular health indicators were robust."
”
Source data from
2019-05-01
Accessed
2026-04-26
Verification
Excerpt independently re-fetched and confirmed word-for-word against the cited source during our grounding audit.
Calculation
Rasmussen et al. (2019) meta-analysis, 103 samples, 606 correlations, N = 26,043. Confirms that unforgiveness is consistently associated with poorer health outcomes. The correlation (r ~ 0.14-0.18) is modest but consistent, and causality is not established.
Caveats
The action-side regret rate is a PLACEHOLDER, not a measured or inferred value. No large-scale survey has directly asked "Do you regret forgiving someone?", and the cited University of Michigan survey does not report any negative-outcome or regret figure for people who forgave — it describes only positive associations between forgiveness of others and health. The 0.10 therefore does not trace to any source-stated statistic; it exists solely to satisfy the schema's required numeric field and to encode the direction (holding a grudge generates more regret than forgiving). Do not read it as a calibrated rate. The inaction-side 33% comes from Trustpilot's Helping Hands consumer panel (12,000 adults globally), which is the more robust figure — it directly asks about grudge regret, though it is a consumer panel rather than a clinical or academic sample. The same survey also found 70% "acknowledge harm" from grudge-holding, but that awareness measure is not regret. The Witvliet et al. (2001) lab study (N=71) is within-subjects and short-duration; chronic grudge physiology is extrapolated, not directly measured over years. The Rasmussen (2019) meta-analytic correlation between forgiveness and health (r ~ 0.14-0.18) is modest in effect size, and causality is not established — healthier people may simply find it easier to forgive. The 3.3:1 ratio should be read as directionally favoring action, not as a precise calibration.
